Archives for March 2013

Grocery stores and retailers recognize in-store registered dietitians as an opportunity to help their shoppers sort through the clutter of nutrition labels and product claims, and to connect with their shoppers on a personal level. “American consumers are connecting health and wellness to their diets,” said Robert Vosburgh, group editor of Supermarket News, a weekly trade magazine for the food industry in a recent article “Meet the Supermarket Dietitian” posted on USNews.com.1

According to the USNews.com article1, among the Food Marketing Institute association’s 1,500 food retailers and wholesalers, 85 percent employ dietitians at the corporate level, half employ dietitians on a regional level, and 33 percent of all stores boast an on-site dietitian. This makes sense since the 2012 U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends showed that 78% of shoppers report interest in reading nutrition labels, paying more for organic products, or looking for locally sourced products.2

As dietitians increase their roles and numbers in-store, it will be important for retailers to measure the sales of healthier items and the return on investment for the store. The USNews.com article1 refers to an uptick in sales around certain healthy promotions in Hy-Vee, and the customer loyalty associated with having a dietitian to help make your purchase decisions a little less complicated.

As health and wellness becomes more of a priority among consumers, it is valuable for the consumer to have someone in-store, explaining to them the health and nutrition benefits of the various products on the shelves as they make their purchasing decision.

We’ve been intrigued lately by a trend I’ve noticed of organizations using job interviews as company PR and buzz building. Unsure of what we mean? Here are two examples:

Pizza Hut

Pizza Hut is looking for a new “Social Media Manager of Greatness.” How did they expect to fill this position? At SXSW, of course—and candidates were allowed just 140 seconds to impress the boss. Doesn’t that number sound familiar to all the Tweeters out there?

In doing this, Pizza Hut assumed, rightfully so, that a) the right person for the job would be at SXSW (or on a Google+ hangout for those who couldn’t make it), and b) the person would know how to make a splash in a matter of seconds, which is a key skill for a social media marketer.

If you think this is strictly a stunt, think again. The job has a legitimate set of criteria, including 5+ years experience in digital advertising or marketing.

Heineken

On the other end of the spectrum, Heineken was conducting interviews for an event and sponsorship internship. How did they weed through the 1,700 applicants? Instead of interviews that lasted seconds, they conducted drawn out interviews that featured everything from an interviewer who tries to hold your hand to a fake heart attack and having to catch someone who’s jumping off a burning building.

And in a Candid Camera style twist, Heineken secretly taped the interviews and turned them into a video, The Candidate, that has now been viewed almost three million times on Youtube.

Why is this interesting, aside from being entertaining? Well, isn’t that just it? These two companies have found a way to make the commonplace job interview entertaining to millions of current or potential consumers—showing the fun side of their corporate brand to the world while filling a straightforward HR need. Pizza Hut has even seen coverage on Forbes and BusinessWeek.com, while Huffington Post UK and Mashable have covered Heineken’s “The Candidate” scheme.

If Pollock Communications were to take this approach, what would it look like? Definitely a healthy cooking competition—sort of Chopped meets MyPlate—and we’d be live tweeting from @PollockPR through the entire thing.

Louise Pollock shares her expertise about 2013 industry trends in “The Food Issue” of the popular public relations trade magazine, O’Dwyer’s. The article, “Diet Trends Reveal New Demand for PR Leadership,” summarizes information, tips and insights garnered from Pollock Communications’ second annual survey of registered dietitians. Click here to read the article and learn more about the survey results.

When you think about all the healthy changes you’d like to make to your diet, it may seem overwhelming. So overwhelming that you may consider avoiding a change all together. To give you some help, Pollock Communications surveyed the nutrition experts – Registered Dietitians – in their annual Nutrition Trends Survey for 2013. Pollock asked dietitians what behavior change would have the biggest impact on improving the American diet. The top answer may not be a surprise to you…but the options that tied for number two may be enlightening.

Eat More…

In the survey of 200 dietitians, “eat more fruits and vegetables” was the top response to the questions: what behavior change would have the biggest impact. We all know this is true. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans encourages us to increase our fruit and vegetable intake and MyPlate says to fill half your plate with fruits and veggies. For more ideas to improve your intake and make this behavior change, visit: www.ChooseMyPlate.gov or Fruits and Veggies – More Matters: http://www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org/.

Less is More

While “eat more fruits and vegetables” was a clear winner with 58.5% recommending it as number one, there was a tied for second place: “reduce added sugars” (18%) and “Maintain current diet but eat less of everything” (17.6%). These scored far above “eat less fat” and “eat less saturated and trans fat”. Based on these dietitian insights, we need to choose more of the good stuff (fruits and veggies) but watch our intake of unnecessary calories from added sugars and overall, we are eating too much of everything.

Manageable Changes

So when you contemplate making changes to your diet for your health’s sake, consider these simple changes: add a fruit and vegetable to every meal or snack and eat less of your usual servings.

Avoiding added sugar can be a little more challenging. Try this low stress modification: avoid regular soft drinks – they are the main source of added sugars in the diet.